


April is the Cruellest Month

by threewalls



Category: KAT-TUN (Band)
Genre: 2011, Angst, Break the Records, Challenge Response, Community: kizuna_exchange, Friendship, Hiatus, M/M, Making Out, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-11
Updated: 2011-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threewalls/pseuds/threewalls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <cite>Jin is not running away. He and Kamenashi are cool. They were civil when they saw each other in January, after one of Jin's concerts no less, which seemed nothing short of a miracle at the time. That Kamenashi even went, and then the surreality of his complimentary small talk backstage after the show. Whatever else happens, they are both professionals.</cite>
</p><p>
  <cite>But this is not a professional setting. It's April, and that and the three vodka-mixers Jin's had are telling him he wants to go out onto the balcony for some fresh air.</cite>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	April is the Cruellest Month

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tretton](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tretton), [unrequitedangst](https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrequitedangst/gifts).



> Written for tretton and unrequitedangst as part of the kizuna_exchange 2011 challenge held on LJ/DW.
> 
> With thanks to lynndyre and Katy for beta and much encouragement. You're both awesome.

**April, 2011**

Jin's eyes blink open when he hears Tegoshi calling out a certain someone's name. He sits up, pulling his head out of Pi's lap, hand out already searching for his fedora off the coffee table.

"He wasn't sure if he could come and it got so late." Pi's mouth is frowning.

He shrugs at Jin; Jin shrugs back. They're both standing. Jin knocks knuckles with Pi, who walks off towards the genkan. It's Pi's birthday, Pi's house, so it's Pi's friends. Jin had known who that might mean.

He remembers when he was the one being careful not to talk about doing stuff with Kamenashi, but that was years ago. Since things changed, Jin's never tried to make Pi choose between them. He's not going to start now.

"I'm going--" Jin says, miming a cigarette and pointing outside. Ryo rolls his eyes and keeps drinking. But Uchi's slumped against the foot of the sofa by an anxiously kneeling Koyama. NEWS, past or present, lushes the lot of them. Pi and Tegoshi are only going to keep Kamenashi busy in the hallway for so long.

Jin is not running away. He and Kamenashi are cool. They were civil when they saw each other in January, after one of Jin's concerts no less, which seemed nothing short of a miracle at the time. That Kamenashi even went, and then the surreality of his complimentary small talk backstage after the show. Whatever else happens, they are both professionals.

But this is not a professional setting. It's April, and that and the three vodka-mixers Jin's had are telling him he wants to go out onto the balcony for some fresh air.

Jin crouches with his back against the wall, lower than the balcony guard-rail, fedora tipped down over his eyes. He wishes he'd brought out a drink, but the cigarette, cupped in his hand, smoke in his lungs, keeps him warm until the night makes him sober enough to go back in.

\---

 **April, 2007  
**  
Kame looks at Jin and at the box with raised eyebrows. Which, fair enough, it's Pi's party (postponed this year because NEWS have just finished their tour; he didn't mind waiting until Jin got home), but Jin gave Pi his present before they came out tonight. It had had a much larger box.

Jin knows that he's still grinning like he's insane, and dragging Kame into the disabled toilet with him probably counted as definite proof, but Jin's hyper and happy and has been since Kame stepped into the VIP room, calling out for Jin.

Over the last six months, Jin has had a lot of time to think, about who he is, what's important and what he wants out of life. In February, Jin touched back down in LA and hit Olvera street, feeling absolutely the tourist cliché, and for once not caring at all. The little paper box had a necklace strung of white enamel skulls knotted on red cord, now tipped out across Kame's palm. Jin could have posted it back to Japan, but this is better. Kame's thumb is stroking repetitively across the skulls.

"Happy birthday," Jin says. "Um. Sorry, it's late."

Kame's smile is shy, in his eyes and the lifted corners of his mouth. Every smile Jin's seen in the week since he's come back has been played for the cameras, but this is what Jin's missed. This one's real.

Kame's lips taste of beer and, because his schedule is the tightest of anyone's and he's come straight from filming, faintly of lipstick at the corners of his mouth.

When Jin pulls back, Kame's grip on the sleeve of Jin's hoodie takes Kame with him, swaying until he catches himself. Large eyes look immediately over Jin's shoulder.

The door's still locked. Jin's eager but he's not stupid. He grins at Kame.

Kame giggles, awkward and sharp, fake. "We've talked about you being out of practice, but it's not really fan service without an audience."

Jin's stomach loops in a knot. He's thought about how this would go more times than he can count, since that epiphany at thirty-five thousand feet westward over Kansas. It never went like this. "That wasn't about fan service."

"Um. We're friends," Kame leans in, fingers tightening on Jin's sleeve. His other hand is a fist, the necklace a loop of red over his knuckles. "I'm not-- You know we're not like that."

Jin wishes Kame would take a swing at him. Better than staring at Jin like that, chewing on his lip, shoulders hunched and small, like he's already thinking of ways that this is _his_ fault. Like he's waiting for Jin to explain, laugh it off, make it all make sense.

"Like what?"

"You know." Kame looks stricken. "Weird. Like the fans say. We're not like that. We're friends, right, Jin?"

"Whatever." Jin wrenches his arm from Kame's grip, stalking for the door.

\---

 **April, 2009  
**  
"It's about tolerance and hope for the future."

"It's about picking up girls in a club, Akanishi. Don't make it sound like your solo has a redeeming social message."

Ueda thumps his _Shonen Jump_ into his bag, loudly. His footsteps echo out the room. Koki took the juniors out to lunch on Nakamaru's wallet. Taguchi is also somewhere else -- Jin thinks he left to call the girlfriend he's not supposed to have -- and the staff are all wherever staff go when idols don't need watching.

Alone at last. Well, shit.

They won't be on stage until June, but everything has to be wedged in between _someone_ 's filming for a drama and a movie. _Gokusen_ already has a summer screening date, even though Kamenashi hasn't been shot for a single scene yet. Jin's filming finally wrapped last month; maybe if he's lucky Natsu will be up on a screen for the new year's break. Jin's stopped holding his breath.

"At least my solo isn't about how bi guys are cheaters," Jin says.

"My solo is about history," Kamenashi snaps. "It's educational."

Jin rolls his eyes. They've all listened to more lectures than they ever wanted about the glory and tragedy of Oda Nobunaga and Morii Ranmaru. As examples go, they may be historical, but Jin will take Brian and Justin over them any day.

"Our history," Kamenashi's rant continues. "Japanese history. At least some of us will be singing in a language the fans can understand."

"Your title is in English."

"Stop the presses, let's re-title it Tensho-Juu, because the guy who won't even sing his solo off the album thinks I'm being a hypocrite."

Jin likes "Care." It's a good song, but it's not where he is right now. And Kamenashi knows it's not the song Jin wanted on the album.

"At least my song isn't depressing as fuck. Forbidden love is fantastic because then you die. That's a great message for young people of today."

He's used to watching Kamenashi make kissy faces at Koki, grind back to back with Taguchi. It's just fan service, and ever since Jin elbowed Kamenashi in the gut (by accident, completely) during practice for Music Station a few years back, no one tries to involve Jin in the really dirty stuff. Jin's even used to Kamenashi hitting on guys in cosplay, he'd thought, but there's something hard about watching Kamenashi swan about a shirt and cargo shorts, hair pinned in an up-do, sharp red lipstick smeared down on his face. No, wait, it's lipstick, all right, but _symbolically_ it's blood.

"Forbidden love is cathartic for the audience, seeing passion played out in front of them in the form of characters they'll never be. It's the perfect balance of drama and distance."

"It's stupid, that's what it is."

"Oh, really," Kamenashi says, pivoting sharply on one foot.

Suddenly bracketed by two leather-cuffed wrists, Jin cracks the back of his head on the mirrored wall. With Kamenashi mincing around like a fucking diva so much these days, Jin has forgotten how fast he can move when he drops the act.

Kamenashi leans in, the way Jin had seen him do so many times before, the tilt of his head, the slow approach. He even parts his lips with his tongue; Jin wonders if Kamenashi knows that he does that. Fan fucking service, except that Kamenashi wouldn't dare do this if there had been a camera crew in the room today.

"And what kind of love does Akanishi-kun prefer?" Kamenashi has taken on the falsetto of an interviewer's tone but isn't stopping to let Jin answer. "The beauty of beer-goggles? One night stands?"

"I want the normal kind," Jin says, thinking: fuck it. His song with Crystal is about hoping love is enough, no matter what the haters say. He still believes that. "The kind that grow old together, and hold hands when they're walking in the street. The kind that buys dogs together."

Jin can feel the stutter of Kamenashi's breath on his face.

"I bought Ran with Yabu," Kamenashi says. "I bought Jelly on my own."

\---

 **April, 2011  
**  
Jin's fingers are wrinkled from the dish-soap and the hot water, but there's something soothing about the process of washing up: pick up a plate, dunk it in the soapy water, scrub, rinse, repeat. The excuse to stay out of the living room is a bonus.

"Ah, that's right. Yamashita is still waiting on the new dishwasher."

Kamenashi has crept into the kitchen on silent feet. He's leaning posed with one hand on his hip, the other holding long-stemmed wine glasses between his fingers, looking as untouchable as a photograph. Dark T-shirt (as if no one has noticed that he likes showing off the muscles from all the baseball stuff), layered with a sleeveless cardigan hanging long over extremely tight, extremely washed out jeans, perfectly accessorised, from the thick silver ring on his pinky, to the black, silver and red strands looped around his neck.

Jin realises he's staring. He picks up another soapy plate from the sink.

Kamenashi leaves the glasses by the other dirties, stepping close. And then, he suddenly reaches down behind Jin, who scoots flush against the sink. Kamenashi holds up the drying cloth he'd taken from the oven door.

"Want some help?"

"Uh-- yeah, sure."

It's awkward to start, like it was in January, and then they had other people to carry the conversation, but every time there's a lull, Jin can go back to scrubbing. He expects Kamenashi to be pissy about Jin's dish-washing technique, but that's not what they talk about. Restaurants they've gone to recently become clubs become clothes they've bought. Jin recommends a cream he's used when his guitar gives him blisters. Kamenashi tells Jin about Koki's new monkey and its elaborately prepared diet. When Kamenashi flips his phone out of his back pocket to show Jin photos of his girls, their glossy coats fresh from the grooming salon, Jin thinks they'll be ok.

"Thanks for that mention in MORE," he says, bowing his head awkwardly across the drying rack. He's always seen himself as Zoro, but it helped having his name in print the week before the single came out. It also felt like being forgiven, even more than seeing Kamenashi in Osaka.

"I argued it was a useful opportunity for cross-promotion." Kamenashi shrugs.

Jin's not sure what that means.

Kamenashi has been only complimentary about ETERNAL's sales; Jin about ULTIMATE WHEELS. They, very carefully, have not directly compared the two. Apples, Oranges and different Arashi releases and all that.

"Was that where those rumours about you and your dancer came from?" Kamenashi asks. "That you're in love for the first time in, what was it, three years?"

Jin can't help glancing across at that, but Kamenashi is facing the cupboards, lining up dry tumblers in neat, little rows. He tries not to react to the fact that Kamenashi knows exactly where everything goes. Kamenashi has probably _cooked Pi dinner_ in this kitchen.

"That's not about Lizzy. I mean, the rumours are, and I _like_ her." Jin _likes_ his crew, all of them, but Jin knows better than to get involved with someone he works with. "But I wasn't talking about her then."

" _'I'm in love, but I don't have a girlfriend'_ ," Kamenashi says. Now he definitely sounds like he's quoting. Maybe he has a secret stack of magazines at home the way Jin does.

"What I love is my life right now." It sounds better in Jin's head, in English, than it does out loud in Japanese, but that makes it even easier to take out of context. Going solo means that Jin doesn't have to lie, not just because they would want him to. He still likes screwing with interviewers.

"But they don't want to hear that. How can I write love songs if I'm not in love? I wrote it four years ago. For a friend's wedding."

Jin wonders when was the last time that an interviewer asked Kamenashi if he was in love. If Kamenashi has ever been in love.

Kamenashi asks: "Not a boyfriend, then?"

The glass Jin was washing slips through his fingers.

Kamenashi's hand snaps forward, catching Jin's wrist before he can reach back into the sink. Jin thinks the glass didn't break, but he wasn't paying much attention. Kamenashi is now standing so close that Jin can feel where their legs touch.

"Not a girlfriend, this time. That's what it sounded like to me," Kamenashi says.

He hasn't let go of Jin's hand, grip sliding to encircle the soap-slick bones of Jin's wrist. Jin can feel the pressure of Kamenashi's fingers, on the inside of Jin's wrist, the unmistakable fluttering of his own pulse.

"No, no boyfriend." Jin has to swallow. "I'm single." If he doesn't ask now, he never will. "So, was that interview fan service or are you, uh, actually gay, now?"

"Did it get your hopes up, Akanishi?"

Kamenashi sounds like they tease each other about stuff like this all the time. Jin snorts, trying to be just as casual, looks over Kamenashi's shoulder at the open door. He can't hear Ryo and Pi in the other room anymore, the whine that means Tegoshi's too tired and won't admit it. Jin can't remember who else is still here.

"Please. I'm so over you."

With a tug and a twist, Kamenashi turns Jin away from the sink. Kamenashi has boxed him in with his body, backed up into the corner, before Jin thinks to struggle. The lip of the countertop bites into his ass.

"You don't feel like you're over me," Kamenashi says.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" They're in Pi's _kitchen_.

Kamenashi leans forward, pressing chest to chest. Jin shifts his feet for balance, and Kamenashi slides in between Jin's spread legs, easy as he pleases. He's so much more built than he was four years ago, but Kamenashi smells exactly like Jin remembers.

"Don't-- You know I-- Don't fuck with me like this."

"Tell me that you don't want me."

Kamenashi places Jin's captive hand on his hip, slack fingers splayed down Kamenashi's ass.

"Tell me you don't want me to kiss you right now, or I will," Kamenashi says. "Jin."

Jin hears his throat make a broken noise, and leans down into Kame's rising mouth.

Kame kisses like he has no doubts, sure and deep, like he is tasting, claiming every inch of Jin's mouth. Jin feels like he is being taken apart. He's not sure if he trusts Kame to put him back together after. He's not sure he cares.

Jin hooks fingers through Kame's belt-loop, pulling him in; curves his hand on the bare back of Kame's neck, under beads and threads, relieved to feel Kame's pulse against the edge of his palm, racing like Jin's own. Kame's hands sit above the waistline of Jin's pants, under his shirt, fingers hot on Jin's skin. Kame hums low in his throat when Jin lifts his tongue, when he nips back at Kame's lips.

It's all great, it's fantastic, until Jin's watch catches on something. He opens his eyes and sees red. Red thread, white skulls: the necklace must have been tucked into Kame's T-shirt.

"You kept it."

"I do like skulls," Kame says.

"Nn."

"I like you, too." He kisses Jin again, not as deep, but this time, they both have their eyes open.

"Uh-- Me, too," Jin says, when they stop again. He knows he keeps staring, at the necklace, at Kame's face. "I like you, too."

Kame raises his eyebrows.

"You knew that."

"I hoped you might," Kame says. He looks gorgeous, his hair all messed up from Jin's hand, his eyes dark and his smile wide and bright.

Jin's face feels warm.

"Yeah, well, don't think I spent four years pining for you."

Kame reaches forward to tuck some strands of hair behind Jin's ear. If he looked smug or something, it would be one thing, but Kame is looking at Jin like he's something amazing.

"Thanks for waiting," he whispers, leaning back in. "Want to keep showing me what I've been missing?"

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] April is the Cruellest Month](https://archiveofourown.org/works/408079) by [randomicicle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomicicle/pseuds/randomicicle)




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